The Intersection of Hearing Science And Hearing Technology Brent Edwards, Ph.D. Executive Director Starkey Hearing Research Center Berkeley, CA

The Current State of Hearing Aids 91% have Digital Signal Processing

Digital Tech Multiband compression Feedback cancellation Noise reduction Environment Classification Datalogging Automatic features Echo reduction

Digital Tech Multiband compression Feedback cancellation Noise reduction Environment Classification Datalogging Automatic features Echo reduction Other Technologies Directional Microphones Wireless connectivity Design innovation Nanotech applications Rechargeable batteries

Hybrid Electric-Acoustic Devices Med-El

Digital Tech Multiband compression Feedback cancellation Noise reduction Environment Classification Datalogging Automatic features Echo reduction Other Technologies Directional Microphones Wireless connectivity Design innovation Nanotech applications Rechargeable batteries

Change Blindness

Perceptual Science will lead the development of the next hearing aid advances

Starkey Hearing Research Center Created in 2004 as a Translational Research Center Academic-type scientific environment for industry-related research

Focus research on: Speech communication Access to environmental and other non-speech sounds Spatial hearing Selective attention Stuart Gatehouse

Loss of environmental awareness leads to stress and anxiety. Listening is not passive. Relaxing is hard to do. Loss of environmental awareness leads to stress and anxiety. Listening is not passive. Relaxing is hard to do. Portis, 2005

Hearing loss can cause memory problems and other cognitive deficits McCoy et al., 2005

Pre-attentive object feature formation harmonicity timbre localization common modulation Selective attention Cocktail Party Phenomenon

Pre-attentive object feature formation harmonicity timbre localization common modulation Selective attention Cocktail Party Phenomenon

Vowel Segregation Humans can hear two concurrent vowels when pitches differ /i//a//i,a/ Summerfield and Assman, 1991

/i//a//i,a/ i: f0=100 Hz a: f0=100 Hz Vowel Segregation Humans can hear two concurrent vowels when pitches differ Summerfield and Assman, 1991

/i//a//i,a/ i: f0=100 Hz a: f0=126 Hz Vowel Segregation Humans can hear two concurrent vowels when pitches differ Summerfield and Assman, 1991

Project 1: Binaural Hearing Sridhar Kalluri, SHRC Research Question: What is the impact of hearing aids on binaural perception?

What we know: Easier to understand target speech if other talkers are at different locations

Target speech Masker/interferer Difficult to understand speech

Target speech Masker/interferer Easier to understand speech

Spatial separation benefits normal hearing listeners Spatial separation benefits normal hearing listeners Spatial Separation Low Lower Is Better High Unaided Speech Threshold

Hearing aids can reduce benefit of spatial separation Hearing aids can reduce benefit of spatial separation Spatial Separation LowHigh Lower Is Better Aided Unaided Speech Threshold

Hearing loss reduces benefit from spatial separation Hearing loss reduces benefit from spatial separation Normal hearing Hearing loss Lower Is Better Spatial Separation LowHigh Speech Threshold

Hearing loss and hearing aid technology can affect binaural benefit to speech understanding

Project 2: Listening Effort Collaboration with Dept. of Psychology, UC Berkeley Prof. Ervin Hafter Anastasios Sarampalis

Project 2: Listening Effort Research Question: Do hearing aids reduce listening Effort?

What we know: People have a limited capacity of attention/effort If more attention is applied to one task, less can be applied to another

Measure listening effort with a Dual-Task Paradigm

Experiment A: Effect of hearing aids on Driving

Listening to speech in noise makes driving worse

Adding directional technology makes driving better

Experiment B: Effect of hearing aids on memory

Directional technology improves memory Directional technology improves memory

Noise reduction technology improves memory Noise reduction technology improves memory

Experiment C: Effect of hearing aids on reaction time

Reaction Time Task

8

7

Directional technology improves reaction time Directional technology improves reaction time

Noise reduction technology improves reaction time Noise reduction technology improves reaction time

Hearing aid technology can reduce effort necessary to understand speech in noise

Conclusion Perceptual Science will play a strong role in technology development Cognition will be a focus of hearing impairment research and hearing aid R&D

Thank You